Beyond Venice: Trends in Foreign Elections
By Faramarz
Nabavi
Most U.S. media virtually
ignores the rest of the world, unless if America has thousands of troops
fighting somewhere. There is a blackout on how people are reacting both to Bush
and pro-business policies in their own lands.
The single trend that cuts across most
countries is the breakdown of two-party dominance; even in those that lack
proportional representation, such as Canada and Britain, more than a third of
voters cast ballots against the two biggest
parties.
On June 28, Canadians gave the
pundits a run for their money by voting solidly against the pro-Bush
Conservative Party. A major corruption scandal, and displeasure with the
increasingly pro-business, anti-social orientation of the incumbent Liberal
Party, high antagonism toward American military and economic hegemony caused
Canadians to reject the Conservatives. This despite projections showing a race
that was "too close to
call.”
With turnout high, many
Canadians voted for the socialist New Democratic Party (similar to the Peace
& Freedom Party), the leftist Bloc Quebecois, and the Greens. Founded by
unions, the New Democratic Party forced the Canadian government to adopt
universal single-payer health care back in the 1960s. Now, with no party holding
a majority in Parliament, the Liberals will depend on support from the NDP and
BQ, providing protection for social services at home and an independent foreign
policy abroad.
Overseas, the European
Parliament elections, held over four days in June and covering 25 countries,
including the 10 new member-states in the east, showed a strong trend among
voters against ruling parties that sent troops for Bush's war on Iraq, as well
as those that have been imposing pro-business economic policies, as in Germany
and France. In addition, a major issue was the future of European
integration.
The main groupings in the
European Parliament did not change their overall relative standing. The
conservative Christian Democrats came in first, followed by labor/social
democrats, libertarian/liberal centrists, eurosceptics, greens/regionalists, far
left, and far right. Conservatives ran very strong in Eastern Europe. The
centrists ran strong everywhere, and the eurosceptics grew in a number of
outlying countries (Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and
Slovakia).
Of the major West European
countries, Britain faced the greatest political upheaval, with Tony Blair's
(a.k.a. the "Bliar") Labour Party getting a moribund 20 percent of the vote,
with the Conservatives having a huge drop as well, while the eurosceptics surged
from almost nowhere to within striking distance of both. The Greens and the
racist British National Party also made big gains, though the BNP failed to win
a seat.
The Green parties across Europe
witnessed divergent trends: in Germany and Britain, they did very well,
benefiting from dissatisfaction with the ruling labor parties, but elsewhere
their support dropped. The German and French Green parties have a centrist
"realo" orientation, supporting interventionist wars (NATO vs. Yugoslavia); left
“fundi” Greens did
poorly.
For the far left, the results
were also mixed. Those who pursued a "reformist" coalition strategy (France,
Spain) lost many seats, as did the Trotskyites; those who kept a strong left
stand (Czech Republic, Portugal) and those who pursued a broad left strategy
(Netherlands, Germany) did well. However, in Berlin, where the PDS has imposed
pro-business budget cuts in a coalition government with the SPD, the voters gave
both of them a stunning
rebuke.
Finally, for those who are
interested in resistance movements, Sinn Fein won seats for the first time, in
both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. However, the Republic of
Ireland also passed a constitutional amendment withholding citizenship from the
children born to recent immigrants. Basques protested the Spanish government's
repression by organizing their own mock election.
Posted: Thu - July 1, 2004 at 07:34 PM